2020 Report of the FABLE Consortium Pathways to Sustainable Land-Use and Food Systems Published by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) 2020 The full report is available at www.foodandlandusecoalition.org/fable. For questions please write to [email protected] Copyright © IIASA & SDSN 2020 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Disclaimer The 2020 FABLE Report was written by a group of independent experts acting in their personal capacities. Any views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of any government or organization, agency, or programme of the United Nations (UN). The country chapters use maps prepared solely by the national teams. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of SDSN or IIASA concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Recommended citation: Strokov A., Potashnikov V. and Lugovoy O. (2020), “Pathways to Sustainable Land- Use and Food Systems in Russia by 2050” In: FABLE 2020, Pathways to Sustainable Land-Use and Food Systems, 2020 Report of the FABLE Consortium. Laxenburg and Paris: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), pp. 511-539. https://doi.org/10.22022/ESM/12-2020.16896 Recommended Creative Commons (CC) License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International). Design, layout and production by Phoenix Design Aid A/S, a CO2 neutral company accredited in the fields of quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001) and CSR (DS 49001) and approved provider of FSC™ certified products. Printed on environmentally friendly paper without chlorine and with vegetable-based inks. The printed matter is recyclable. 2 2020 Report of the FABLE Consortium Pathways to Sustainable Land-Use and Food Systems in Russia by 2050 Russian Federation Anton Strokov1*, Vladimir Potashnikov1, Oleg Lugovoy1 1RANEPA, Moscow, Russia. *Corresponding authors: [email protected] This chapter of the 2020 Report of the FABLE Consortium Pathways to Sustainable Land-Use and Food Systems outlines how sustainable food and land-use systems can contribute to raising climate ambition, aligning climate mitigation and biodiversity protection policies, and achieving other sustainable development priorities in Russia. It presents two pathways for food and land-use systems for the period 2020-2050: Current Trends and Sustainable. These pathways examine the trade-offs between achieving the FABLE Targets under limited land availability and constraints to balance supply and demand at national and global levels. These pathways were prepared within RANEPA’s state assignment research program using assumptions based on official documents from the Russian Government on pathways until 2030 and 2050 and in consultation with stakeholders and experts at the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, the Soil Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University, and the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology (IGCE, Moscow, Russia). They were modeled with the FABLE Calculator (Mosnier, Penescu, Thomson, and Perez-Guzman, 2019). 4 Russian Federation Climate and Biodiversity Strategies and Current Commitments Countries are expected to renew and revise their climate and biodiversity commitments ahead of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 15th COP to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Agriculture, land-use, and other dimensions of the FABLE analysis are key drivers of both greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity loss and offer critical adaptation opportunities. Similarly, nature-based solutions, such as reforestation and carbon sequestration, can meet up to a third of the emission reduction needs for the Paris Agreement (Roe et al., 2019). Countries’ biodiversity and climate strategies under the two Conventions should therefore develop integrated and coherent policies that cut across these domains, in particular through land-use planning which accounts for spatial heterogeneity. Table 1 summarizes how Russia’s draft Long-Term Low Emissions and Development Strategy (Government of Russia, 2020d) treats the FABLE domains. According to the LT-LEDS base scenario, Russia is projected to increase its GHG emissions by 31.6% (in all sectors of the economy) by 2030 compared to 2017. The projected 2,077 Mt CO2e of emissions in 2030, including forestry and other land use (FOLU) sequestration, are 33% lower than Russia’s emissions in the 1990s. The LT-LEDS base scenario’s projected changes in the FOLU sector are not particularly ambitious and lead to a decrease in sequestration from the current levels of -577.8 Mt CO2e to -246 Mt CO2e in 2030. Meanwhile, emissions from agriculture are projected to increase from 128 Mt CO2e to 144 Mt CO2e in 2030. Nevertheless, the draft LT-LEDS also provides theoretical assumptions of measures that could lead to a potential reduction of almost 263% in agricultural emissions, which could turn the sector into a net carbon sink reserve [p. 48, table 6 of Government of Russia, 2020d]. Envisaged mitigation measures from agriculture include the optimal use of organic (manure) fertilizers, measures to tackle soil erosion, and decreasing carbon loss on cropland and increasing carbon-sink capacity on pastures. The maximum theoretical ambition in the FOLU sector is to improve the carbon sequestration capacity from -577.8 Mt CO2e to -723 Mt CO2e in 2030 (page 48, table 6 of Government of Russia, 2020d). Measures to increase the sequestration ambition in the Russian FOLU sector include measures against forest fires, optimization of wood cutting technologies, replacing conifers with broadleaf and mixed forest trees, economic stimulation for life-long timber-product production, and land rehabilitation projects. Under its current commitments to the UNFCCC, Russia does not mention biodiversity conservation. Table 1 | Summary of the mitigation target, sectoral coverage, and references to biodiversity and spatially-explicit planning in current LT-LEDS. Total GHG Mitigation Baseline Mitigation target (Y/N) 1 Sectors (Y/N) e/yr) 2 included of Mention Links to Other FABLE Targets Targets FABLE Planning Related to AFOLU to AFOLU Related Biodiversity (Y/N) Maps for Land-Use for Maps Mitigation Measures Mitigation Measures Inclusion of Actionable Actionable of Inclusion Year Target Year GHG emissions (Mt CO LT-LEDS 2017 1,577.8 2030 2,077 Energy, industry, Y N N Water, forests (2016) agriculture, LULUCF, waste Source: Government of Russia, 2020d 1 We follow the United Nations Development Programme definition, “maps that provide information that allowed planners to take action” (Cadena et al., 2019). 5 Russian Federation Table 2 provides an overview of the targets listed in the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plan (NBSAP) from 2015, as listed on the CBD website (CBD, 2020) which are related to at least one of the FABLE Targets. According to this document Russia accepts that “by 2020, no less than 50% of exploited and protected forest are sustainably managed which ensure the conservation of biodiversity,” which is close to the FABLE Targets on maintaining enough land for biodiversity protection. Currently, Russia does not have biodiversity policies in place beyond 2020. Table 2 | Overview of the NBSAP targets in relation to FABLE targets NBSAP Target FABLE Target By the year 2020 the rate of natural habitat loss, including those of DEFORESTATION: Zero net deforestation from 2030 forests and grass ecosystems, are cut by at least half and completely onwards halted where it is necessary. The degradation and fragmentation of habitats is also significantly decreased. BIODIVERSITY: No net loss by 2030 and an increase of at least 20% by 2050 in the area of land where natural processes predominate Sub-target: By 2020, no less than 50% of exploited and protected forest DEFORESTATION: Zero net deforestation from 2030 are sustainably managed which ensure the conservation of biodiversity. onwards By 2020, the recovery of forests and their stable accumulation of carbon DEFORESTATION: Zero net deforestation from 2030 has been ensured on 15% of all degraded agricultural lands. Owing to onwards increased efforts for conservation of existing forests, their carbon losses have been decreased by 17%. GHG EMISSIONS: Zero or negative global GHG emissions from LULUCF by 2050 Sub-target: By 2020 no less than 20% of all agricultural lands are BIODIVERSITY: No net loss by 2030 and an increase of managed and used in accordance to biodiversity conservation goals. at least 20% by 2050 in the area of land where natural processes predominate By 2020, the total area of terrestrial [...] territories with regulated BIODIVERSITY: No net loss by 2030 and an increase of resource use policies and which play a key role in the provision of at least 20% by 2050 in the area of land where natural ecosystem services is increased to the point where it composes 17% of processes predominate all terrestrial territories 6 Russian Federation Brief Description of National Pathways Among possible futures, we present two alternative pathways for reaching sustainable objectives, in line with the FABLE